Handbook to Identifying and Vanquishing Mary Sues: A Reference Guide
by Peppery Mints
Summary: Samantha Gherkins (called Pickles by almost everyone) has just been dragged down a manhole by a knight, who informs her she needs to rid Middle Earth of Mary Sues. Not only that, but she has her own "sidekick", a real-life Mary Sue from her high school, who's making her simultaneously irritated and also thinking that not all Mary Sues are evil creatures.
1. Chapter 1: Pickles and Pencils

**Chapter One: Pickles and Pencils**

* * *

Sam Gherkins had a morning routine.

First, her alarm clock would go off, the harsh _brrrrriiiiing_! of an old telephone coming from her phone. She'd swing her feet out of bed, grab her phone, and stuff it under the mattress. Having disabled the alarm clock, she would drift back to sleep, upon whence her mother would come into her room and shake her awake. Having thus been roused, Sam would get out of bed, realize she was almost late for the bus, and frantically look through her closet to find something wearable. Being a teenager, she was very groggy from lack of sleep, and grabbed several articles of clothing at random. They would later turn out to be a baggy sweatshirt and jeans which had a hole in the knee. (Not the fashionable type of hole either—she had gotten it from getting thrown off her bicycle.)

Once dressed, Sam would hurry downstairs and grab her backpack and start stuffing books and homework hastily into it. She wasn't exactly the most organized girl in the world. After kissing her mother good-bye and grabbing a pop tart from the toaster, she would run outside and catch the bus by a millisecond.

On this particular morning, things went exactly according to schedule. Sam stepped outside in a red sweater that smelled like old closets and sweatpants that were, for once, clean. The baggy clothes she wore did nothing for her figure, if there was a figure to do anything for. Sam was skinny and made entirely of angles, from her sharp elbows to her wide, sharp shoulders. Even her hips, what little she had, seemed angular. She pulled her hoodie over her head, hiding the fact that she hadn't washed her hair in three days.

"Hey, Pickles!"

Ah, the teasing. The teasing was another part of her daily routine.

First, avoid the legs in the aisle. Either accidentally or deliberately, legs were always stretched out in the aisles. Fortunately Sam was usually dexterous, so this was navigated with ease. Upon sitting, Sam would wait until Jordan customarily insulted her (today it was a rather groan-worthy, "Hey, I'm pretty hungry. Anyone got some mustard? I've got some _pickles_ right here!"). Unfortunately, the nickname suited her. Not only did she have a terrible last name, she also had a vinegary personality and a fondness for the color green.

Also part of her daily routine: insulting Jordan back.

"Ha ha, so hilarious," Sam sneered. "You should stop it with the food-related jokes. Tiny over there might get hungry and eat somebody."

Tiny was Jordan's brother. Tiny also could have given a rhino a run for its money in both looks and weight.

"Maybe he'll sit on you. Can't get you more flat-chested than you already are," Jordan laughed back.

"You know, it's pretty sad when your _brother_ has bigger boobs than I do," she snapped. A fat joke, and a poor one, but who cared?

"An _ant_ has bigger boobs than you do," another girl pointed out. The back of the bus exploded in laughter.

Sam scowled. "Shut up, you guys." She buried her rather large nose into a paperback book and ignored them. In addition to mocking her height, her hair, her features, and her lack of social skills, the bus was also fond for mocking what she read. Today it was a cheap romance novel, and tomorrow it would be a comic book. Sam read voraciously, and had spent most of her childhood between the covers of a book. As one of the less popular kids mocked the shirtless abs on the front of the cover, Sam ignored them and scrunched in a corner.

So her routine dragged on.

When the bus finally finished its route and stopped at the school, Sam had already grabbed her backpack and was out the door before most of the other kids had gotten up. A speedy getaway was necessary whenever Jordan was on the bus; otherwise he would continue to mock her.

And then her routine got dragged away, beaten savagely, and left for dead.

Because of all things, a _knight_ was standing outside the bus.

"Samantha Gherkins?" the knight intoned with a voice that was impossibly deep and rich.

"Um," she said intelligently. "Yeah?"

The rest of the bus pushed past her—and past the knight!—with no reaction whatsoever. Sam whirled around, trying to see if this was some kind of joke. Nobody else was looking at the knight. He was dressed in a full suit of armor, with his sword out and everything! His helmet bore a dark red plume of feathers from the back, and his visor was down. Sam took a cautious step closer.

"Samantha Gherkins, you have been selected. Please come with me."

"Hey, Pickles, are you coming?" Jordan yelled from the sidewalk.

"Are you for real?" Sam asked the knight.

The knight paused, and then flipped his visor up. "I am for very real," said the man underneath. He had a round, ruddy face and a full beard, and—oddly enough—a pair of glasses on his nose. "Will you hurry up? I can't keep this portal open for very long."

"What portal?" Sam said. _This is a joke, this has to be a joke, this isn't real, stranger danger, what the hell is he talking about?!_

"This portal," the man said, getting to his knees with a creak of metal. He pried open the manhole cover, and beneath it was utter blackness. "Please, come with me."

Sam laughed. "Oh, I get it. This is some kind of prank, right? You want me to jump into a manhole and into the sewer. Really funny, guy, really hilarious. I love the armor. But unfortunately, getting covered in poop just isn't on my agenda."

"Who are you talking to?" Jordan asked curiously. He had come closer and was looking at Sam with a confused expression on his face.

"This wise guy over here," Sam jerked her thumb at the knight.

"He can't see me," the knight snapped.

"What wise guy? Me?" Jordan asked, perfectly on cue.

"Oh, so this is your idea?" Sam demanded. "Where the hell did you find an adult who would dress up in a suit of armor just to prank me? You're sick, Jordan."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jordan shot back, getting angry. "What adult? What armor? What are you _talking_ about?"

Sam felt her cheeks flush hot. She was about to spit out an angry response when the knight grabbed her elbow. "There is no time," the knight urged. "You have to come with me. _Please_. The whole Lord of the Rings story isn't safe!"

"Did you say...Lord of the Rings?" Sam queried, blinking.

"No, I didn't!" Jordan said irritably. "Look, come on into school, you're going to be late."

"Yes, I did," the knight sighed. "Would you please, _please_ come with me? I need to brief you, and then I can get out of this armor."

"Brief me about _what_?"

But the knight just pulled her roughly and pushed her down the manhole. The blackness seemed to reach out and grab her.

* * *

Before she could even scream or comprehend what was happening, she had fallen through the manhole and landed, on her feet, in the middle of a dark room. The crackle of a fire was nearby, and she strained her eyes to see in the darkness. There was a cushy armchair, a thick braided rug, and a warm fire in a fireplace in front of her. To her left and right were bookshelves—tall, huge bookshelves filled with thousands of books. The shelves stretched seemingly forever, vanishing into the blackness. Behind her, there were endless aisles of solid bookcases, all filled with books, all continuing down until the darkness swallowed them up. The only illumination was from the fire, and even that seemed to be dimming.

Heart hammering in her chest, Sam stepped forward cautiously. "Hello?" she called.

Her greeting turned into a shriek as there was a pop of golden sparks in front of her, and the knight stumbled forward, coughing. "Ack," he said hoarsely. "That never gets any easier."

"What's going on?" Her voice was kind of a scream. "Where the hell am I? What are _you_?"

"I'm the Bookkeeper," he said tiredly, pulling off his helmet. Beneath his helmet, he had thick, curly chestnut hair parted off to the side. He was younger than she had first thought, with youthful cheeks and a rather plump, comfortable face. He peeled himself out of his armor and tossed it carelessly aside. "And you're Sam Gherkins, although you're often called Pickles."

"How do you know my name?" Sam demanded, folding her arms tightly across her chest.

"I know everything about you. I know everything about _all_ of my workers." The Bookkeeper offered a weary little smile. "Look, I'll keep it short and sweet, because you don't have much time and I'd like to take a nap. You see—"

"What is this place?" Sam cut him off.

"This is the Library. Center of all knowledge. Every written word is on these shelves. Now, as I was saying—"

"That's impossible!"

"Only the small minded speak of the impossible. And I don't hire small minded people. As I was—"

"You can't expect me to believe—"

"No!" the Bookkeeper interrupted her finally. "No, I don't expect you to believe that, even though it's true. What I need you to do is very simple: I need you to go into the Lord of the Rings story, kill some Mary Sues, and get out again. Sound simple?"

Sam was stunned into silence.

The Bookkeeper smiled. "That's better. Now, let's see, I'm supposed to say things like, 'I picked you out of millions', and 'You're the sharpest mind of your generation', and a lot of other rubbish, but I don't like lying and I don't like reciting things. So I won't do either. I need you to get in that story and kill any Mary Sue you see. The whole story's riddled with 'em."

"What...?" Sam managed to gasp.

"Exactly. Ever since fanfiction started becoming popular, Mary Sues have been going around plaguing books, television, and movies. Messing up some pretty darn good stories too. And because of this, I was kind of..._created_, to go around from story to story and banish all the Mary Sues back to the land of Imagination."

"The land of _what_?!"

"Long story. Anyway, as more and more Mary Sues started popping up in every single piece of fanfiction, it got too much for me to go around and kill them all. So I started hiring people, like you, to go and do it for me. It's a pretty fun little job, you get to experience the whole story yourself, and you get to kick some Mary Sue butt. Which is always satisfying, in my opinion."

"Why...?"

"Because they're annoying. You'll see in a few moments. Now, you'll need this," the Bookkeeper reached around the armchair and brought out a large yellow weapon, about as thick as Sam's wrist, and handed it to her.

She stared at it.

"It's a pencil."

And it was. It was long and thick enough to be used as a staff, but the lead on the end looked needle-sharp and glinted in the light of the firelight. On the other end, a perfectly pink, unused eraser cushioned the bottom and made it fun to lean on.

"Don't laugh, it used to be a quill, but I kept getting lice. So I changed it to a pencil. I'm sure I'll change it to a ballpoint pen in a few years. Or maybe a gel pen, those things are cool."

"What the...?"

"Anyway, to make a long story short, use your pencil to banish the Mary Sues. There will be dozens of them, each of them more horrible then the last, but there will be _one_ Mary Sue. The Mother of all Mary Sues. The most awful, terrible, most _horrible_ thing you can imagine. She'll be hard to kill, and she's very, _very_ sneaky. So be on the lookout. They'll usually congregate around Legolas, so be sure to find him as quickly as possible."

"Hang on a second," Sam frowned. "You jerked me out of my home, out of my _world_, so you can drag me here, hand me a pencil, and say start banishing bad fanfiction Mary Sues to the Land of Imagination? Is that what you're telling me?"

"Yes." The Bookkeeper looked a little wary.

There was a long silence.

"When do I start?" Sam asked, grinning.

"Excellent! You'll start right away," the Bookkeeper said, looking relieved. "Here, just sit down in this chair, yes, just like that, and...start reading."

"But...how do I do it?" Sam said uncertainly. "I mean, go through the story."

"Oh! How could I have forgotten? Yes, of course. Here, your very own copy of the Handbook." The Bookkeeper plucked a book off one of the shelves, seemingly at random, and handed it to her. It was surprisingly heavy, and seemed very battered and worn. Many of the pages were dog eared, and when she opened it, it had that wonderful old book smell. On the cover were the words _Handbook to Vanquishing and Identifying Mary Sues: A Reference Guide_.

"What's this?" she asked, feeling excitement well up in her stomach. "And what about my parents? What about the real world?"

"Everything will be explained in the book, Sam. Now, please, start reading."

He handed her yet another book.

Sam opened a thick, dusty tome that looked as though it were a thousand pages. Instead of the neatly typed font she had expected, in very legible, spidery scrawl were the words:

_"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton..."_

She didn't even feel herself falling into the book until there was a flash of light, and she heard the book falling onto the thick rug with a _thump!_

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**I don't even...Well, yes, I do know. This story is largely in protest against the millions of Mary Sues that pervade not only this fandom, but all fanfiction in general. I don't like Mary Sues, not in fanfiction, and not in published literature, but this will also be exploring why Mary Sues are ****_successful_****, and even likeable if written correctly. (Of course, I'll also be having fun with sues. Some of them are so over-the-top silly, and that'll definitely be an element in this story.) **

_|No reviews received at this time.|_


	2. Chapter 2: Sparkles and Squirrels

**Chapter Two: Sparkles and Squirrels**

* * *

It was a beautiful day.

Sam picked her head off the ground and looked around. She was sprawled in the middle of a small clearing, the blue sky overhead seeming to go on forever. Thick old trees hemmed in the clearing, and she could see birds amid the deep tangled thicket. A small stream gurgled noisily close by, and the sun overhead beat down hotly on her. The sharp, stirring scent of autumn was in the brisk breeze, but the sun was boiling. Samantha sat up, rubbing her eyes, and saw the long yellow length of the pencil in front of her. Next to it, as neatly as though it had been placed there, was a small composition book. On the front cover was the title, _The Handbook to Identifying and Vanquishing Mary Sues: A Reference Guide_, spelled out in big bold strokes of a permanent marker.

She picked up the book and examined it. It was very old, and dog-eared in multiple places. Some of the pages were stuck together, and the more she flipped through the book the larger and heavier it seemed to become. It went on forever, or so it seemed, and the handwriting style ranged from tiny, militant font to big loopy cursive. There must have been a thousand pages, and by the time she reached the end the notebook felt as heavy as a dictionary.

There was a nice thick section titled _Lord of the Rings_, and she flipped to it.

**Congratulations!** the book read. **You have been selected to out of thousands to protect and defend this wonderful Story!**

Sam remembered what the Bookkeeper had told her, and rolled her eyes.

**Be on your guard! The very first person you see will likely be a Sue. A list of identifying marks/features are listed below, but first, check your Drop Point for any signs of Sueishness. If you see any sparkles, fluff, or pink ribbons, look around for a Sue! They are very nearby.**

She got to her feet and picked up her large pencil. The clearing, or the Drop Point, was only about twenty feet across so she covered the distance easily. Everything seemed perfectly normal—the grass was green, the sky was blue, the squirrels were all singing in harmony...

Wait, _what!?_

Six squirrels were arm in arm on a tree branch, swaying lightly and humming low in their rodent throats. Simultaneously repulsed and in awe, Samantha leaned closer and inspected them. They seemed to be dusted very lightly with pink glitter. She rocked back and hefted her pencil.

"Hey!" she called out, sounding much more brave than she felt. "Anyone there?"

The squirrels scattered in all directions, leaving behind a small cloud of glitter. Sam sneezed.

"Oh, excuse me," a voice said softly, and Sam looked down. Behind the base of a big tree was a young girl sitting cross-legged on the ground. Her hair was fiery red and hung in perfectly straight locks to her waist. A pair of jade-green eyes looked up at Sam, somehow tormented and joyful both at the same time. She was wearing black combat boots, black skinny jeans, and a black lace cardigan which was perfectly indecent on her incredible figure; the Sue stood up and extended a hand, which had darkly painted nails on it.

"I'm Krystalle," Her rosebud lips quirked upwards in a smile to reveal perfectly straight white teeth. "Krystalle Marcy Alicia Starling, but you can just call me Star, everyone does."

The Sue had perfect features. There really weren't _words_ for how beautiful she was, even though she looked to be about fourteen. She had high cheekbones and large eyes with thick lashes, and her lips seemed to be tinted a deep red without any aid of lipstick or gloss. Her skin was pale and flawless, and Samantha, who had struggled with acne for years, felt distinctly jealous.

It was this jealousy which enabled her to whack the Sue unmercifully over the head with the giant pencil. (Something she never thought she'd get to do in her life.)

The Sue staggered back, and the wound on her head began to bleed hot pink blood. "Why?" the Sue sobbed. "Why are you so mean?"

"Because you're a Sue!" Sam snapped, and lunged after her with the pencil. The needle-sharp point of the pencil lead caught the Sue between the ribs, and it toppled over.

"I'm dying," the Sue cried, writhing slowly on the grass. "I am perishing, without ever seeing my one true love...I shall never see his perfect blue eyes, or his beautiful blonde hair, or his hot rock hard abs, or his perfect—"

Sam stabbed the Sue again for good measure, hurrying up the death process. The Sue exploded into pink glitter, scattering the stuff everywhere and making Samantha cough. Sam scuffed at the pink power and let it scatter to the winds; within moments, there wasn't a single sign the Sue had ever existed.

She peered at the ground. "Awesome," Sam breathed, and then checked the book again.

**If your Drop Point is free of Sues, feel free to continue to experiment with your Staff of Ultimate Power. It's a fun weapon—don't be shy! Try it out!**

"This is the Staff of Ultimate Power?" Sam demanded of thin air, looking at the pencil. "What a rip-off!"

**If you think it's a rip-off, think again! That staff is the only thing that can properly kill Sues, otherwise they'll just keep coming back. It can also bring down small game and toast marshmallows very well. **

"Uh-huh," Sam muttered. "Sue killer and marshmallow toaster. How useful." She tucked the book under her arm and trooped across the clearing, beginning to forge her way through the bushes. It was hot in the sunlight, but the chill autumn breeze lingered in the shade. For once, Samantha felt grateful of her bulky sweatshirt. There wasn't a path to be found, so she started making her own, using her pencil as a walking stick and bushwhacking her way through the forest. A bit of reality started to set in, breaking up the surreal feeling she had been experiencing. How far away from humanity was she? How long would it take her to find more Sues? Was this even really happening? The Bookkeeper said she would be all right, but had he been lying?

It was nearly impossible to tell exactly, but judging from the sun Sam guessed she had been hiking an hour before she reached a path of some sorts. Breathing hard and feeling sweaty, she sat down and looked around. Besides killing the Sue, nothing interesting had happened, and she was beginning to think this was all an elaborate coma.

With nothing better to do, Sam opened the book again.

**Don't worry about returning to the real world. Once your job is completed and the Story is over, you'll get picked up by the Bookkeeper. You'll get deposited back in time at the same moment you left, so don't worry, things will be back to normal in no time. **

**Something you _do_ need to worry about is the Sues exposure to the Fellowship. If you're sitting on your tuchas reading this book, you're doing the wrong thing! The more time Sues get to spend with the Fellowship, the more OOC (Out of Character) the canon characters begin to act! Sometimes, the Sues will wreck the Story completely, and you won't be able to fix it.**

Guiltily, Sam started walking again. However, without the book answering her questions, more of them started flooding in. How would she find the Fellowship? Would she really be in here for _three years_, since that's how long the Quest for the Ring took? Would people speak English? Sam trudged along the muddy path, avoiding puddles and using her pencil to whack away overhanging branches. When the road seemed fairly clear for a while, Samantha took out the book again and kept walking. She had plenty of reading-while-walking experience, since that's how she coped with daily struggles. Okay, maybe not _daily struggles_. Maybe she just liked to read. Besides, nothing interesting happened while just _walking_.

**Beware of the Mother Sue. She is amazingly dangerous and will use all sorts of disguises to attempt to fool you. YOU MUST KILL HER. Otherwise, the Sues she controls will keep coming into the Story. (For more information, see Sue, Mother.)**

**However, if you have some downtime with the Fellowship, try to set up a Sue Trap (see diagram A).**

Samantha turned the page and saw a roughly drawn diagram. There was a stick figure with pointy ears standing at the bottom of a cliff. An arrow marked him as **"Shirtless Legolas"**. On top of the rectangular cliff were six or seven stick figures, all of them with long hair and dresses. They were labeled **Sues**.

Directly beneath that, the diagram showed the Sues jumping off the cliff for the shirtless Legolas, and Legolas shooting them after they fell.

Sam let out a very unattractive snort of laughter and turned the page. Here, the handwriting changed, and it became harder to decipher.

**Sue traps are excellent for luring Sues. Generally, Sues are very dumb when it comes to love interests. Keep that in mind.**

"_Ow_!"

Sam walked straight into an overhanging branch and stumbled backwards. Rubbing her aching head, she looked up, and nearly dropped the book.

Standing in the middle of the path, about ten feet away, was _Aria_.

Aria was absolutely _legendary_ in Sam's highschool. She was the most popular, beautiful, brilliant girl in school; she volunteered for committees, was the Head Cheerleader, dated the captain of the football team, and was generally wonderful and nice to everyone. Well, everyone she _noticed_. Sam was fairly certain Aria didn't even know her name. The two of them didn't share a single friend, and their respective social circles never intermingled. The only reason Sam knew Aria's name was because it was impossible not to—Aria had a talent for lingering in people's minds.

And why wouldn't she? She was short and plump in all the right places, unlike Sam, and had a cute button nose with freckles smattered across it. Her hair was blonde and fell in tight corkscrews to her shoulders, and her light blue eyes were expressive and usually artfully surrounded with makeup. Today was no exception, but unlike all the times Sam had seen her in the school hallways, Aria's designer clothes were covered with mud, and there were circles under her eyes. Still, once she saw Sam her cherubic face lit up, dimples flashing.

"Hey!"

"What?" Sam sputtered, staring. "What are you doing here?"

"I think I could ask you the same question," Aria gave her a small smile. "Are you here for...you know?"

"Sue slaying?" Sam asked, her eyes drawn to the large pencil in Aria's hand. It was identical to her own. And Sam was willing to bet that there was another copy of _A Handbook to Identifying and Vanquishing Mary Sues: A Reference Guide_ in her expensive Gucci bag. However, Aria's pencil tip was crusted with pink sparkles and she looked more than a little dejected.

"Yeah. It's a lot more..." she shuddered, "...gruesome than I thought it would be."

Sam remembered the pink sparkles. "Mine wasn't that bad," she said truthfully. "Honestly, I'm just wicked excited to be here. Can you believe it? Mary Sue slaying! It's unreal!"

"I know," Aria said, but sounded nowhere near as excited. "I just didn't like the idea of...I don't know, I don't like killing things, I guess."

"They're Mary Sues," Sam said flippantly. "How awful can it be?"

Aria shrugged. "Anyway, I guess we should...find the Fellowship, I guess?"

"How are we supposed to do that?" Sam wanted to know.

"Didn't you read the book?" Aria asked.

"Well, I _was_, until I walked into a tree branch," Sam said ruefully.

"Um, if you read ahead," Aria said, pulling an identical composition book to Sam's out from her black bag, "it says we can use our staffs to teleport to important plot points in the story. It's how we're supposed to keep an eye on the Fellowship and the Sues all at once, I guess."

"Oh," Sam said, feeling stupid. "So where do you want to go?"

"I guess...Riverdell?" Aria said uncertainly.

"Rivendell," Sam corrected automatically. "Also known as Imladris."

Aria flushed. "Yeah. That."

Taking a deep breath, Sam extended her pencil tip, feeling a little silly. "How are we supposed to do this?"

"I think we just..." Aria touched Sam's pencil tip with her own, and a spark shot off. Both girls flinched.

The sparks continued, and then a sheet of white blinded them temporarily. Both of them tried to scream but found themselves unable to—Sam felt as though someone was pulling her by her hair through a tube. She couldn't breathe or see, and the pain in her head grew. Just when she was about to go crazy, both girls popped into existence in the middle of Elrond's study.

Elrond looked up, bewildered. Gandalf was sitting near the fireplace.

"Um," Sam began, breathing hard, "we can...explain?"

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**A bit rushed and very poorly paced, in my opinion. Hopefully the next chapter will be better.**

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_{Six reviews received}_

_Special thanks to: _**Krissy001, Ninja Elf girl, Daeril Ullothwen, Thanwen, AaylaKitofNiflheim**_ (very much so)_**, **_and_ **Yuki Suou.  
**_Six reviews already! So excited to get this story off the ground. ^^_


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